Station Road Schoolhouse in West Chester Twp. James W. Minniear/Contributed

West Chester sells historic schoolhouse to Montessori school

By

Denise G. Callahan, Staff Writer

WEST CHESTER TWP. —

The West Chester Twp. trustees have agreed to sell the historic Station Road Schoolhouse to a local Montessori school for $250,000.

Trustee Board President Mark Welch said he supports the sale because he likes the fact the former schoolhouse — there is a mandate in the purchase offer — will be returned to its original use.

“The most important and significant point here is the schoolhouse is going to be returned to its original function,” Welch said. “I think that says something to the history of it, it has a long history.”

Trustee George Lang said the move also makes sense financially because the historic building has become costly to maintain.

“It’s really good for the taxpayers as well,” he said. “Once you have old facilities they just become money sucking operations.”

Community Montessori School is running out of room at its Cincinnati-Dayton Road location, according to owners Jamie and James Minniear

They plan to build a 3,800-square-foot addition onto the historic schoolhouse so it can house new fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade programs.

The school currently has 46 students enrolled in its early childhood programs.

“We’ve been turning away people for a couple years now,” Jamie Minniear said, adding that the historic schoolhouse will allow for more space in pre-school and kindergarten classrooms.

She said they plan to use an architect who can match the historic look of the former school.

“It’s going to (match), amazingly so, they can do it,” she said. “We’ve already been working with our architect and it’s going to be gorgeous. Actually they did that on my current space, they were able to match the old space which is the second oldest building in West Chester. It was built in the 1800s.”

The whole project, including the purchase price, is around $750,000, according to Jamie Minniear.

The next step is to get zoning approval and then they will dive into figuring out financing the project. She said they’ll know better in about a month what the timeline will be for opening the new school.